Continued …….
Firstly, one would hear the ―brm---brm‖ un- even beat of the German engines, then the ―ack ---ack‖ guns would start. As we had 4 Naval 4.7 guns in Loxford Park about 500yards from our house, the noise was deafening! If they all fired together across our house it would some- times blow in the windows. If I had managed to persuade my parents to let me go to the cin- ema —say -Saturday or Sunday - I would of- ten dawdle in the street—with shrapnel falling all around
Watching the shell bursts and the search lights. One could hear shrapnel raining all over—particularly on the roof tiles but I was never hit, or my friends either! However the next day was collecting day when we kids gathered the har- vest of shrapnel, shell cases, cartridge cases, incendiary bomb fins etc. Soon I had quite a collection!!! When Loxford guns actually brought down a Heinkel ill, the aircraft was put on show in the school grounds next to the guns. Although an armed sentry guarded it, we kids, complete with pliers, etc. managed to get bits off! I levered off a piece of the tail plane and part of the swastika whilst the sentry chased somebody on the other side of the plane. We were as- siduous collectors!
It was unreal sitting night af- ter night waiting for the bomb- ers, and when they came, to only feel really frightened when the sticks of bombs came nearer and nearer. Often one could hear the ―swish‖ of the baskets of incendiary bombs
about 36 at a time —as they came down. Even more frig0- htening was the slap of para- chute silk when a land mine came down. They did enor- mous damage as they exploded on immediate impact so spreading the blast—while ordinary ―aerial bombs‖ dug-in before exploding. Apart from our windows and doors being blown off, the nearest we had was the next road where a landmine demolished 6 houses and badly damaged about 40 more. In our short Crescent, we had a lot of incendiaries, the nearest 5 doors away that my father put out whilst on all night Fire Watch duty. It went through the roof into the bath, Dad rushed upstairs with wa- ter / sand buckets and stirrup pump, into the bathroom and was promptly shut in there by an over zealous Fire Watcher !!! He had to kick the door out to escape. Seemed funny afterwards!!! Once, walking in the next road inspecting the night‘s damage, I went to pick up the shiny chromium knocker/cum letter box in the middle of the road only to find it attached to the
After the War
front door and a couple of yards of brickwork !!! It was quite funny how the whole front wall of a house could be blown out yet leave all the beds, bed linen, pictures on walls, and carpet still intact— blasts had such weird effects. The repair services organised nationally and through the lo- cal authority were very quick to arrive to cast a big tarpaulin over the roof and keep interiors dry.
In retrospect the most amaz- ing thing was that when we sat listening to the incessant noise all we would talk about was how, ―when‖ the war was over, we would do such and such. Never once was it -―if‖ or ―we might lose‖ -. The wonderful spirit of every single person was unsurpassed —everybody helped through the terrible bombing and supported one another to a degree not seen since. The whole country really was united in its war effort.
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